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Senegal Department of State Background
U.S. Department of State Background Note
Senegal is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau. The Gambia penetrates more than 320 kilometers (200 mi.) into Senegal. Well-defined dry and humid seasons result from northeast winter winds and southwest summer winds. Dakar's annual rainfall of about 61 centimeters (24 in.) occurs between June and October when maximum temperatures average 27oC (82oF); December to February minimum temperatures are about 17oC (63oF). Interior temperatures are higher than along the coast, and rainfall increases substantially farther south, exceeding 150 centimeters (60 in.) annually in some areas.
About 51% of Senegal's population is rural. In rural areas, density varies from about 77 per square kilometer (200 per sq. mi.) in the west-central region to 2 per square kilometer (5 per sq. mi.) in the arid eastern section. About 50,000 Europeans (mostly French) and Lebanese reside in Senegal, mainly in the cities. French is the official language but is used regularly only by the literate minority. All Senegalese speak an indigenous language, of which Wolof has the largest usage.
Archaeological findings throughout the area indicate that Senegal was inhabited in prehistoric times. Islam established itself in the Senegal River valley in the 11th century; 95% of Senegalese today are Muslims. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the area came under the influence of the Mandingo empires to the east; the Jolof Empire of Senegal also was founded during this time.
In January 1959, Senegal and the French Soudan merged to form the Mali Federation, which became fully independent on June 20, 1960, as a result of the independence and the transfer of power agreement signed with France on April 4, 1960. Due to internal political difficulties, the Federation broke up on August 20, 1960. Senegal and Soudan (renamed the Republic of Mali) proclaimed independence. Leopold Sedar Senghor, internationally known poet, politician, and statesman, was elected Senegal's first President in August 1960.
After the breakup of the Mali Federation, President Senghor and Prime Minister Mamadou Dia governed together under a parliamentary system. In December 1962, their political rivalry led to an attempted coup by Prime Minister Dia. Although this was put down without bloodshed, Dia was arrested and imprisoned, and Senegal adopted a new constitution that consolidated the President's power. In 1980, President Senghor decided to retire from politics, and he handed over power in 1981 to his handpicked successor, Abdou Diouf. Abdou Diouf was President from 1981-2000. He encouraged broader political participation, reduced government involvement in the economy, and widened Senegal's diplomatic engagements, particularly with other developing nations. Domestic politics on occasion spilled over into street violence, border tensions, and a violent separatist movement in the southern region of the Casamance. Nevertheless, Senegal's commitment to democracy and human rights strengthened. Diouf served four terms as President. In the presidential election of 2000, he was defeated, in a free and fair election, by opposition leader Abdoulaye Wade. Senegal experienced its second peaceful transition of power, and its first from one political party to another. President Wade secured the presidency again in February 2007, garnering 55.9% of the vote. Former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck and Socialist Party Candidate Ousmane Tanor Dieng secured 14.92% and 13.56%, respectively. Parliamentary elections were held in June 2007.
Senegal is a secular republic with a strong presidency, weak legislature, weak judiciary, and multiple political parties. Under the 2001 constitution, presidents serve for 5 years and are limited to two terms. Abdoulaye Wade was the last President to be elected to a 7-year term, in 2000. His current term expires in 2012. The National Assembly's members are elected separately from the president. In February 2007, President Wade reenacted the Senate. The president appoints 65 of the 100 Senate members. The president of the Senate serves as the presidential incumbent if the country's president is unable to complete his or her term.
The Cour de Cassation (Highest Appeals Court, equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court) and the Constitutional Council, the justices of which are named by the president, are the nation's highest tribunals. Senegal is divided into 11 administrative regions, each headed by a governor appointed by and responsible to the president. The law on decentralization, which came into effect in January 1997, distributed significant central government authority to regional assemblies.
Senegal is one of the few African states that has never experienced a coup d'etat. Power was transferred peacefully, if not altogether democratically, from Leopold Sedar Senghor to Abdou Diouf in 1981, and once again, this time in fully democratic elections, from Diouf to Wade in March 2000. Senegal's principal political party was for 40 years the Socialist Party (PS). Its domination of political life came to an end in March 2000, when Wade, the leader of the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) and leader of the opposition for more than 25 years, won the presidency. The Socialist Party also dominated the National Assembly until April 2001, when in free and fair legislative elections, President Wade's coalition won a majority (89 of 120 seats). The National Assembly has lost influence in the overall political process during Wade's tenure. Turnout in the June 2007 elections was approximately 35%, with 131 of the 150 seats going to the ruling PDS. Seventeen opposition parties boycotted the elections claiming that February's presidential elections were flawed.
President Wade has advanced a liberal agenda for Senegal, including privatizations and other market-opening measures. He has a strong interest in raising Senegal's regional and international profile. The country, nevertheless, has limited means with which to implement ambitious ideas. The liberalization of the economy is proceeding, but at a slow pace. Senegal continues to play a significant role in regional and international organizations. President Wade has made excellent relations with the United States a high priority.
There are numerous political parties, most of which are marginal and little more than platforms for their leaders. The principal political parties, however, constitute a true multiparty, democratic political culture, and they have contributed to one of the most successful democratic transitions in Africa, in spite of the fact that they failed to nominate a single opposition candidate for the 2007 presidential elections. Senegal has a tradition of a flourishing independent media, largely free from official or informal control, though there were some reports press restrictions prior to the February 2007 election. The country's generally tolerant culture, largely free from ethnic or religious tensions, has provided a resilient base for democratic politics though press freedom and civil liberties have experienced some decline in recent years.
Principal Government Officials
President of the Republic--Abdoulaye Wade
President of the National Assembly--Macky Sall
President of the Senate--Pape Diop
President of the Constitutional Council--Mireille Ndiaye
Prime Minister-- Adjibou Soumare
Senior Minister of Foreign Affairs--Cheikh Tidiane Gadio
Senior Minister of Economy and Finance--Abdoulaye Diop
Senior Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals--Cheikh Tidiane Sy
Minister of Armed Forces--Becaye Diop
Ambassador to the United States--Amadou Lamine Ba
Ambassador to the United Nations--Paul Badji
Senegal maintains an embassy in the United States at 2112 Wyoming Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20008 (tel. 202-234-0540), and a Mission to the United Nations at 392 Fifth Avenue, 9th floor, New York, NY 10018 (tel. 212-517-9030).
The former capital of French West Africa, Senegal is a semi-arid country located on the westernmost point of Africa. Predominantly rural and with limited natural resources, the country earns foreign exchange from fish, phosphates, peanuts, tourism, and services. Its economy is highly vulnerable to variations in rainfall and changes in world commodity prices. Senegal depends heavily on foreign assistance, which in 2005 represented about 27% of overall government spending (including both current expenditures and capital investment), or $572 million.
Since the January 1994 CFA franc devaluation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and other multilateral and bilateral creditors have been supporting the Government of Senegal's structural and sectoral adjustment programs. The broad objectives of the program have been to facilitate growth and development by reducing the role of government in the economy, improving public sector management, enhancing incentives for the private sector, and reducing poverty.
With an external debt of $4 billion (2005), and with its economic reform program on track, Senegal reached its Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief completion point in April 2004. In 2006, Senegal received $86.2 million (CFA 43.1 billion) in debt relief from HIPC and other multilateral debt forgiveness initiatives. Senegal has made some progress on structural reforms, but the pace has been slow. There have been significant delays in implementing a number of measures on the privatization program, good governance issues, and the promotion of private sector activity. In 2005, the tax revenue to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio was 11.1%, and the current account deficit was 7.5%. Senegal's fiscal deficit has grown over the last several years, figuring at nearly U.S. $600 million in 2007. The IMF warned that Senegal's deficit may approach 10% of GDP in 2008.
Currently, the manufacturing sector is the leading export sector in Senegal with $333 million worth of exports in 2005. The phosphates sector is the second-largest export sector with $193 million in exports, followed by the groundnut sector with $80 million in exports.
Senegal has had moderate success in attracting foreign investment, mostly from France, India, and Morocco. Currently, there are no restrictions on the transfer or repatriation of capital and income earned, or investment financed with convertible foreign exchange. However, the government does limit the amount of foreign exchange individuals may obtain for trips outside Senegal. Outgoing travelers may obtain a maximum of CFA 6 million in euro or foreign currency. Direct U.S. investment in Senegal remains about $100 million, mainly in petroleum marketing, pharmaceuticals manufacturing, chemicals, and banking. Economic assistance, about $700 million a year, comes largely from France, the IMF, the World Bank, and the United States. Canada, Italy, Japan, and Germany also provide assistance. Senegal has received increasing amounts of foreign assistance from Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) countries and China.
Senegal has well-developed though costly port facilities, an international airport serving 28 international airlines that serves as a regional hub, and advanced telecommunications infrastructure, including a fiber optics backbone and cellular phone penetration approaching 10% of the population.
Senegal has well-trained and disciplined armed forces consisting of about 17,000 personnel in the army, air force, navy, and gendarmerie. The Senegalese military force receives most of its training, equipment, and support from France and the United States. Germany also provides support but on a smaller scale. Military noninterference in political affairs has contributed to Senegal's stability since independence.
In August 1981, the Senegalese military was invited into The Gambia by President Dawda Kairaba Jawara to put down a coup attempt. In August 1989, Senegalese-Gambian military cooperation, which began with the joint Senegalese-Gambian efforts during the 1981 coup attempt, ceased with the dissolution of the Senegambian Confederation. Senegal intervened in the Guinea-Bissau civil war in 1998 at the request of former President Vieira.
Senegal has participated in many international and regional peacekeeping missions. Its history of participation in peacekeeping is impressive. Senegal provided peacekeeping forces for the African Union (AU) mission in Darfur, Sudan (AMIS), the UN mission in Liberia (UNIMIL), and the UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOMCI), with General P.K. Fall, Chief of Defense of the Senegalese Armed Forces, acting as overall Force Commander. In 2000, Senegal sent a battalion to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to participate in MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission, and agreed to deploy a U.S.-trained battalion to Sierra Leone to participate in UNAMSIL, another UN peacekeeping mission. A Senegalese contingent was deployed on a peacekeeping mission to the Central African Republic in 1997, and in 1994, Senegal sent a battalion-sized force to Rwanda to participate in the UN peacekeeping mission there. In 1992 Senegal sent 1,500 men to the ECOMOG peacekeeping group in Liberia, and in 1991, it was the only Sub-Saharan nation to send a contingent to participate in Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East.
Senegal currently has approximately 3,600 soldiers serving in peacekeeping or peace support missions. This includes approximately 1,600 troops in Darfur and the remainder in Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Senegal also has gendarmes serving in Haiti and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
President Senghor advocated close relations with France and negotiation and compromise as the best means of resolving international differences. To a large extent, the two succeeding Presidents have carried on Senghor's policies and philosophies. Senegal has long supported functional integration among French-speaking West African states through the West African Economic and Monetary Union. Senegal has a high profile in many international organizations and was a member of the UN Security Council in 1988-89. It was elected to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1997. Friendly to the West, especially to France and to the U.S., Senegal also is a vigorous proponent of more assistance from developed countries to the Third World. Senegal will host the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Summit in March 2008.There has been a 20-year internal conflict in Senegal's southernmost region of the Casamance. The ongoing peace process initiated in December 2004 began to deteriorate in late 2006. Dakar has yet to deliver a comprehensive plan for peace. The rebellion also involved neighboring Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia. With changes in the Government of Guinea-Bissau, tensions between Senegal and its southern neighbor have lessened significantly; however, relations with The Gambia are still tense. There have been tensions with Mauritania over water rights to the Senegal River and ethnic populations that move across porous borders. However, Senegal and Mauritania have recently made strides toward returning more than 20,000 Mauritanian refugees from northern Senegal.
Senegal enjoys an excellent relationship with the United States. The Government of Senegal is known and respected for its able diplomats and has often supported the U.S. in the United Nations, including with troop contributions for peacekeeping activities. The United States maintains friendly relations with Senegal and provides considerable economic and technical assistance. About 300 Senegalese students come to the United States each year for study. President Diouf paid his first official visit to Washington, DC, in August 1983 and traveled several times to the U.S. thereafter. Senegal was President George W. Bush's first stop in his July 2003 visit to Africa. In June 2001, President Wade met President Bush at the White House. Senegal hosted the Second African-African American Summit in 1995. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton began her trip to Africa in March 1997 with a visit to Senegal, and President Bill Clinton visited Senegal in 1998. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner visited Senegal in August 2001. Foreign Minister Gadio met Secretary of State Colin Powell in September and November 2001. Senegal took a strong position against terrorism in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S., and in October 2001 hosted a conference establishing the African Pact Against Terrorism. On July 20, 2005, Secretary Rice attended the fourth annual African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum held in Dakar, Senegal. The 2005 Forum focused on increasing investment initiatives and facilitating economic and political development in Africa. In June 2006, Foreign Minister Gadio participated in the opening ceremony of the fifth AGOA forum, held in Washington, DC, together with Secretary Rice. Foreign Minister Gadio and Secretary Rice met in August 2007 to discuss major policy priorities for the two nations. In June 2007, First Lady Laura Bush visited Senegal as part of her trip to Africa.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) implements the U.S. Government's development assistance program. USAID's strategy focuses on promoting economic growth/private sector development by expanding microfinance and business development services and commercializing natural and non-traditional products; improving local delivery of services and sustainable use of resources; increasing use of decentralized health services; and improving middle school education, especially for girls. In addition, there is a conflict resolution and rehabilitation program to improve conditions for peace in Senegal's two southern regions known as the "Casamance". Total U.S. assistance for Senegal in FY 2006 was approximately $55.47 million, of which $44.41 million was for development assistance.
The Peace Corps program in Senegal has over 100 volunteers serving in agriculture, forestry, health, and small business development. The program currently has about 170 volunteers. The U.S. Embassy's Cultural Affairs Section administers the Fulbright, Humphrey, and International Visitor exchange programs. The Fulbright teacher, researcher, and lecturer programs are two-way exchanges, hence the section also supports American grantees in Senegal during their stay. In addition to exchanges, the section organizes numerous programs for the Senegalese public including U.S. speaker programs, fine arts programs, film festivals, and a book club. Finally, the section organizes an annual regional colloquium for American Studies professionals, journalists, and civic leaders from over 15 countries in Africa.
Principal U.S. Officials
Deputy Chief of Mission--Jay T. Smith
USAID Director--Kevin Mullally
Peace Corps Director--Christopher Hedrick
Defense Attache--Thomas W. Cook (Acting)
Political Counselor--David Mosby
Political Officer--Osman Tat
Economic Counselor--Wallace Bain
Public Affairs Officer--Robin Diallo
Consular Officer--Jim Loveland
Management Counselor--Salvatore Piazza
The U.S. Department of State's Consular Information Program advises Americans traveling and residing abroad through Consular Information Sheets, Public Announcements, and Travel Warnings. Consular Information Sheets exist for all countries and include information on entry and exit requirements, currency regulations, health conditions, safety and security, crime, political disturbances, and the addresses of the U.S. embassies and consulates abroad. Public Announcements are issued to disseminate information quickly about terrorist threats and other relatively short-term conditions overseas that pose significant risks to the security of American travelers. Travel Warnings are issued when the State Department recommends that Americans avoid travel to a certain country because the situation is dangerous or unstable.
For the latest security information, Americans living and traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs Internet web site at http://www.travel.state.gov, where the current Worldwide Caution, Public Announcements, and Travel Warnings can be found. Consular Affairs Publications, which contain information on obtaining passports and planning a safe trip abroad, are also available at http://www.travel.state.gov. For additional information on international travel, see http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Travel/International.shtml.
The Department of State encourages all U.S citizens traveling or residing abroad to register via the State Department's travel registration website or at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. Registration will make your presence and whereabouts known in case it is necessary to contact you in an emergency and will enable you to receive up-to-date information on security conditions.
Emergency information concerning Americans traveling abroad may be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S. and Canada or the regular toll line 1-202-501-4444 for callers outside the U.S. and Canada.
The National Passport Information Center (NPIC) is the U.S. Department of State's single, centralized public contact center for U.S. passport information. Telephone: 1-877-4USA-PPT (1-877-487-2778). Customer service representatives and operators for TDD/TTY are available Monday-Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight, Eastern Time, excluding federal holidays.
Travelers can check the latest health information with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. A hotline at 877-FYI-TRIP (877-394-8747) and a web site at http://www.cdc.gov/travel/index.htm give the most recent health advisories, immunization recommendations or requirements, and advice on food and drinking water safety for regions and countries. A booklet entitled "Health Information for International Travel" (HHS publication number CDC-95-8280) is available from the U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, tel. (202) 512-1800.
Further Electronic Information
Department of State Web Site. Available on the Internet at http://www.state.gov, the Department of State web site provides timely, global access to official U.S. foreign policy information, including Background Notes and daily press briefings along with the directory of key officers of Foreign Service posts and more. The Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) provides security information and regional news that impact U.S. companies working abroad through its website http://www.osac.gov
Export.gov provides a portal to all export-related assistance and market information offered by the federal government and provides trade leads, free export counseling, help with the export process, and more.
STAT-USA/Internet, a service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, provides authoritative economic, business, and international trade information from the Federal government. The site includes current and historical trade-related releases, international market research, trade opportunities, and country analysis and provides access to the National Trade Data Bank.Revised: Oct. 2007


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Dezeen's top ten: watches and clocks
This month's top ten features the ten most popular stories about clocks and watches from the Dezeen archives. In first place is The Clock Clock, a digital clock made of 24 analogue clocks that spell out the time with their hands, created by Swedish designers Humans since 1982.
2: second most popular is the Fortis IQ watch with a blackboard-style face by designer Rolf Sachs for watch brand Fortis.
3: in third place is the V.01 collection by Hong Kong-based designer David Ericsson of Void watches.
4: fourth most-popular is a collection of watches by Milan designer Denis Guidone, including this one where hour, minute and second hands are represented by dots.
5: our fifth most-clicked-on story about watches features five designs by London designer Crispin Jones of Mr Jones Watches.
6: Extra Normal Grande by Ross McBride of Normal Timepieces is sixth most-viewed.
7: in seventh place are more watches by Denis Guidone.
8: Marc Newson's watches for Ikepod come in eighth.
9: a movie from Dutch designer Maarten Baas' Real Time exhibition in Milan this April called Analog Digital Clock features a performer replicating a digital clock by painting over and wiping clean panels on a glass screen.
10: and finally, in tenth place is Trapezoid, a watch designed for fashion brand Issey Miyake by Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa.
That's it until next month.
See also:
Dezeen's top ten: cardboard projects
Dezeen's top ten: shops
Dezeen's top ten: schools
Dezeen's top ten: pavilions
Dezeen's top ten: hotels
Dezeen's top ten: animals
Dezeen's 2008 review
Dezeen's top ten: glamorous girls
Dezeen's top ten: Japanese projects
Dezeen's top ten: student projects
Dezeen's top ten: interiors
Dezeen's top ten: stories with most comments
Dezeen's top ten: Milan 2008
Dezeen's top ten: houses
Dezeen's top ten: skyscrapers
Top ten Dezeen stories from December 2007
Most popular stories during our first twelve months

subset: commoncrawl


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First it was for finding stolen cars, then keeping track of criminals, now Alzheimer's sufferers are being fitted with tracking devices. This has been going on for some time now, but unlike the old tracking devices we're seeing an update in technology to take advantage of the cell network for communications. The person wearing the device can be located using Uplink Time Difference Of Arrival or U-TDOA. This is the same technology that is used by 911 services to calculate the location of a cell phone.
Alzheimer's is a frightening disease. The thought of a loved one wandering off with nothing to identify them and no recollection of who they are is a fear of every family dealing with the illness. There's no doubt that this is a cost-effective solution that really works.
But from our perspective, can someone hot-glue a $3 Seiko to this thing? If you were designing this, would you even consider something that straps to your wrist and doesn't have a clock on its face?
Update: Andrew corrected an error in the original post. This system uses U-TDOA for location, not GPS.
Update: Jeremy works for LoJack and has informed us that the product in the post and the technology used have nothing to do with the LoJack brand of products.


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By David Crane
defrev at gmail dot com
July 05, 2008
DefenseReview got the chance to test-fire two Israeli combat weapons during the firing demonstration portion of NDIA International Infantry & Joint Services Small Arms Systems Symposium 2008, which was held at the Tac-Pro Shooting Center. The two weapons we fired were the IMI-developed select-fire Negev Commando Version LMG/SAW 5.56mm NATO (5.56x45mm NATO) and Micro-Tavor M.T.A.R. 21 5.56mm NATO (5.56x45mm NATO) bullpup assault subcarbine/SBR, both of which are being manufactured and marketed in Israel by Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) Ltd., formerly a division of IMI (Israel Military Industries Ltd.). The IWI Negev Commando LMG/SAW is the compact Special Operations (SPECOPS) version of the IWI Negev LMG/SAW Standard Version, and the IWI Micro-Tavor is the compact subcarbine version of the standard IWI Tavor T.A.R. 21 5.56mm NATO assault rifle.
We should inform our readers right off the bat that we didn't get to put nearly as many rounds through either weapon as we would have liked. We did, however, enjoy firing them, and were generally impressed with their performance. We believe these weapons will…
serve the IDF well. However, a low-round-count range session is very different from a high-round-count/adverse conditions test. We would very much like to conduct the latter in the near future. Based on our limited experience with the Negev Commando LMG and Micro-Tavor MTAR-21, it's DefenseReview's opionion that the respective cyclic rates/rates of fire (ROF) of both weapons are a bit higher than ideal. The Negev Commando LMG's cyclic rate is either 850-1,050 RPM (Rounds Per Minute) or 950-1050 RPM, depending on the position setting (according to the brochure), and the Micro Tavor MTAR-21's cyclic rate is 870 RPM, again, according to the brochure.
Defense Review would like to see the respective cyclic rates of both weapons brought down to the 600-650 RPM range, which we believe would aid in weapon controllability when firing on full-auto and ammo conservation. We plan to interview LTC Mike Hartman, Commander of the Sharpshooting & Marksmanship Section of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), soon. Mr. Hartman oversees instruction for both the Negev and Tavor series weapons. When we interview him, we'll ask him the reason for the higher cyclic rate, which may be purposeful, that purpose (potentially) being the ability to put more rounds on target more quickly, i.e. achieving higher target saturation in a shorter amount of time. When we get Mr. Hartman's answer, we'll edit this article accordingly.
While the Negev Commando Version 5.56mm LMG/SAW is a belt-fed weapon, it can also utilize 30-round box magazines, giving it additional versatility in combat.
While DefRev was at the symposium, we learned some specifics about IDF tactics (Israeli military tactics) as they relate to the deployment of the Negev LMG. However, since we haven't yet been cleared by Mr. Hartman on what we can discuss publicly in that regard, we're not going to write anything about it. If we receive clearance on specific points, we'll relay them to our readers–but then and only then.
It's DefRev's understanding that Ohio Ordnance Works, Inc. is the presently the U.S. distributor for IWI products. This is what we were told by our friend and contact Gil Elharar of North East Technologies Ltd. (Israel), who is working directly with IWI. We're going to contact Robert Conroy at Ohio Ordnance Works to find out when or if semi-auto-only versions of the Negev and Tavor series weapons will be offered commercially to law-abiding U.S. citizens. We'll let you know what we find out by either editing this story or publishing a DefRev update, so stay tuned.
DefRev shot video footage of the Negev Commando LMG/SAW and Micro-Tavor MTAR-21 bullpup assault subcarbine/SBR being test-fired at the symposium firing demo, and we'll try to make that footage available to our readers, soon.
We're also going to try to conduct a high-round-count test of both weapons as soon as possible, video tape the session, and publish the footage for our readers.
In the meantime here are some videos clips and documents :
IWI Israel Weapon Industries (IWI Product Demo Video)
negev terror!! (Negev night shooting session with laser sights and NVGs/NODs)
Israeli Weapons of the Future (Shows FutureWeapons' Richard Machowicz in a mock exercise using Micro-Tavor MTAR-21)
IWI Negev LMG 5.56mm Brochure/Fact Sheet
IWI Micro Tavor M.T.A.R.-21 5.56mm Bullpup Assault Subcarbine Brochure/Fact Sheet
IWI Tavor T.A.R.-21 5.56mm Assault Rifle Series Brochure/Fact Sheet
Image/Photo Credit(s): Israel Weapon Industries (IWI)
Company Contact Info:
Robert E. Conroy, Jr. (Robert Conroy a.k.a. Bob Conroy)
Vice President
Ohio Ordnance Works, Inc.
P.O. Box 687
Chardon, Ohio 44024
440-285-3481 Office
440-286-8571 Fax
email@example.com Email
http://www.ohioordnanceworks.com Website
Gil Elharar
Director, Marketing & Business Development
North East Technologies Ltd. (NET)
24 Weizmann St. P.O. Box 1001
Kfar Sava 44100 Israel
972-97489-038 Office 1
972-974-89039 Office 2
972-9-7489 066 Fax
firstname.lastname@example.com Email
http://www.ne-tech.com Website
Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) Ltd.
P.O Box 63
Ramat Hashron 47100
Phone: 972-3-7606000
Fax: 972-3-7606001
E-mail: email@example.com
Website: http://www.israel-weapon.com
Related Articles:
2008 NDIA Small Arms Systems Symposium Firing Demo: Initial Report
DefRev Video: IMI Tavor TAR-21 Commando Carbine and Tavor-2 Subcarbine.
Israeli Company Develops Revolutionary Combat Pistol Sight System
Ultimax 100 MK4: Best Choice for USMC Infantry Automatic Rifle (IAR)? Video Clip
LMG – Light Machine Gun
SAW – Squad Automatic Weapon
SBR – Short Barreled Rifle


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Complimentary Maintenance
Get the most out of your new Lexus with routine scheduled maintenance. Optimize the performance, reliability, safety and resale value of your Lexus, with the six month or 5,000 mile and the twelve month or 10,000 mile maintenance services, for vehicles using synthetic oil,* both performed at no cost to you.
To keep your L/Certified by Lexus vehicle running in optimum condition, Lexus offers a complimentary scheduled maintenance program for L/Certified vehicles. The program begins upon purchase of your L/Certified vehicle and includes your next four scheduled maintenance service visits within 2 years or 20,000 miles (whichever comes first).
* Complimentary services for vehicles using non-synthetic oil are 30 days or 1,000 miles and 6 months or 5,000 miles.
Complimentary Maintenance SCHEDULE SERVICEVehicle Maintenance
With proper maintenance and care, your vehicle will last longer and deliver more dependable, economical performance. Lexus recommends obtaining scheduled maintenance for your vehicle every six months or 5,000 miles, whichever occurs first.
Scheduled maintenance service may include these items, depending on the mileage and oil type (synthetic or non-synthetic):
- Inspect and adjust all fluid levels
- Replace engine oil; replace oil filter
- Replace cabin air filter
- Rotate tires
- Visually inspect brake pads, calipers and rotors
- Road-test vehicle
Dealership Amenities
While we efficiently service your Lexus, you can take advantage of our Wi-Fi equipped lounge. Our other thoughtful extras include transportation to and from your home or office, a complimentary car wash, a fleet of Lexus loaner vehicles should you need one and a café where you can sip your favorite beverage or enjoy a snack. Also available is a business center featuring charging stations and a full service boutique.
SCHEDULE SERVICELexus Technicians
There are many reasons to service your vehicle at our Lexus dealership. An important one is our Lexus factory-trained technicians, who are trained and certified at the Lexus College.
When your technician steps into the service bay, you can be confident knowing they have been trained and certified in servicing your Lexus vehicle using some of the most advanced diagnostic tools and equipment in the industry.
SCHEDULE SERVICEMaintenance Schedule
Regular maintenance is essential to obtaining the highest level of performance, safety and reliability from your Lexus. It can also enhance your vehicle's resale value.
Lexus provides this schedule of recommended maintenance services specific to 2001 and subsequent model years. For additional details of the applicable minimum maintenance requirements, you may refer to the Maintenance Schedule provided with your vehicle.
Lexus recommends having maintenance for your vehicle performed by an authorized Lexus dealership.
Maintenance ScheduleOwner Resources
LexusDrivers.com - For your convenience, a website dedicated to helping you make the most of the Lexus-ownership experience. Several key resources:
SCHEDULE SERVICELexus Tire Center
Why buy tires from a dealer?
No one knows how to care for your Lexus better than the experts at your dealership. Lexus trained and certified technicians know your vehicle inside and out. When it comes to parts, including tires, your dealership understands that the right components provide superb performance and handling for the highest quality standards. Trust them to have the right tires when you need them. Help ensure a safe, comfortable ride with a set of Lexus -recommended tires.
Your dealer understands your Lexus from the tires up.
- Tires designed for your vehicle
- Tires in stock and ready for installation
- 24-month road hazard coverage
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Dear Ones,
Perhaps you feel as if nothing is right, even though nothing is wrong. You are betwixt and between. The expected is not what you expect and the unexpected continues to happen.
This confusion is directly related to your inner-being. For you are undergoing a transition different from what you expected. You most likely thought that you would awake one day a different person of a different frequency or dimension. That all would be achieved without much effort on your part.
Such is true, but not quite as you assumed. For indeed, given the dimension/frequency leaps you are making, your transition is relatively easy. It is just that you did not expect to be knowingly part of that transition.
That last statement points out how extreme this transition is for those of you at the forefront.
Even though birth is amazing, the transition from pregnant woman to birth mother is much more confusing than one might expect given the joyful images portrayed by most. If you were the first woman to give birth, you would most likely be frightened, angry, sad and many other emotions for you would not understand that the growth in your belly was expected, nor would you understand other shifts within your being in preparation for that birth.
So it is now. You are the first, so you do not know what to expect. And even though this transition has taken you through highs and lows emotionally, spiritually, and physically, it has been relatively easy because you were able to share or access information with other forerunners.
For many, such a statement is not enough to cover your current fears and anger. You no longer feel comfortable with what was, and you have no idea what will be. So you feel rootless and therefore, angry at the Universes and yourself.
"Why am I doing this?" "What's in it for me other than one stumbling block after another?"
Our accolades for your tenacity and bravery mean nothing now for you do not feel brave nor tenacious. You are merely angry at yourself and the Universes.
Such will pass as you acclimate to new you. You are now assimilating segment after segment within seconds instead of the weeks you requested before this time.
The first segments you introduced to your earth being, were most likely compatible with who you were. In a sense, you accepted new segments that felt like a lovely new dress.
Now that you are again expanding your being, you are experiencing clothes/segments that might be uncomfortable but are necessary for this earth lifetime. These new clothes include elements of the fear, anger, and hate you hid beneath the surface of your being. The not so nice pieces you adapted to by hiding them deep within – resulting in lifetime after lifetime of trying to clear something you did not understand.
These deeply hidden, not so pleasant parts of yourself are coming to the forefront for a final clearing before entering your new stage or totality – occurring early in what you label your new year.
If you were to be a new mother would you continue drinking, smoking or otherwise doing something to harm your baby? That is what is occurring now. Do you wish to muddle through the next few months with your addiction of self-fear or do you wish to create a new you cleared of those fears?
So it is that most of you are bringing those fears to the surface with interactions, memories, dreams, and replays of who you wish you were not.
Please do not be frightened if you say or do something that appears totally out of character. For all those at the forefront will be doing the same. Clearing pieces you – or we – did not believe you could clear in one lifetime.
Many of you are angry (Of course!) for you believe you cleared everything necessary to move beyond the fourth dimension. You have. What you are clearing now is far beyond what was required before your birth on earth in this lifetime. You are zooming so rapidly into the fifth and beyond dimensions, that we do not necessarily know how far you will transition.
Suffice it to say, you are far beyond our expectations as you continue to fly. A large part of that flying is your decision to clear those pieces so deeply hidden you assumed you could not clear until future transitions in a variety of places.
What you may discover is that your clearings are beyond earth clearings. You might expose those pieces of your being that you have hidden from yourself in other places and times. So some of your clearings may not make sense to you or anyone.
So it is, you are racing to complete this phase during one of the earth's most emotional times. Giving you a sense that your world is as wrong as you. You may also have difficulties with decisions for you do not know who you will be tomorrow or even the next hour.
For those of you who birthed children, do you remember the fears you felt when you learned you were pregnant with your first child? Such is you now. "How will I cope?" "What will my life be like during this clearing process? "Will I push everything in my 3D life away?"
So it is that your fears, combined with your new important, but not always so pleasant segments are making you edgy, confused and often angry. Such will pass shortly – and no one will notice as much as you. For as you expand your new being, you are also expanding your interests and skills.
You are truly becoming a new person in a new environment. Moving far more rapidly than you and we imagined possible with your shared bits of forerunner information.
You are indeed birthing a gloriously radiant, new you. Providing information for those who follow that all you and they experience is part of the norm – just as is true in a human pregnancy. So be it. Amen.
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The New Rules of Introducing Solids to Your Baby
We turn the tables on everything you (and your mom) thought you knew about feeding your baby.
When my son Jules was 5 1/2 months old, I visited a lactation consultant for help with a stressful milk-supply situation. "I'm pumping three times a day at work, and before bed, and I'm still not sure he's getting enough milk," I told her. "How can I increase my supply?" Eager for a solution, I continued my barrage of questions. When I paused for a breath, she asked: "Have you tried introducing solids yet?" "Oh no, not yet," I told her. "The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends breast milk exclusively for the first 6 months, so I was waiting until then." Exactly then. Obviously, I follow rules religiously. She commented that, at the time, the AAP recommended starting solids between 4 and 6 months. She helped me identify the signs that Jules might be ready for "real" food. Could he hold his head up and sit while supported? Yep. Did he seem to be interested in our food? Considering he'd swatted at the seaweed salad dangling from my chopsticks the night before, I'd say so. My pediatrician thought starting solids was a great plan. That night, we offered Jules pears, and he ate like a pro. I kept nursing and pumping, and combined with solids, the milk I was making was enough — just as nature planned. Disagreement within the AAP's committee on nutrition and breastfeeding fueled the dueling rules — introduce foods between 4 and 6 months and breastfeed exclusively for six. Since then, the AAP has settled on a unified message: Introduce solids between 4 and 6 months while continuing to nurse, avoiding formula if possible. Could it be that there were other infant-feeding revisions I'd overlooked? As it turns out, there are a number of baby food rules many moms take as gospel that now border on myths. Reconsider these, and you may just sidestep a slew of obstacles.
6 Rules Worth Rethinking
1. For healthier purées, make your own. While making your own might save you money, homemade baby food is generally not any healthier than the store-bought purées, says Melinda Johnson R.D., a lecturer in child and family nutrition at Arizona State University. "Both canned and jarred baby foods are very nutritious," says Johnson. "[Purées] contain just the food plus some water to get the right thickness without unhealthy add-ins like sugars or salt." Of course, always scan the label for any additions, just in case. "Even sugar in the form of fruit juice concentrate is not a good choice for babies," says Johnson. (It's full of "empty" calories, just like any other added sugar.) And, yes, making your own purées definitely expands your options — but the variety of baby food flavors on the market is changing to encourage the development of a more sophisticated palate. "As a parent who once thought only homemade baby foods were healthy, I discovered such a great array of premade, organic fruit and vegetable combos that now I give my son both," says Marie Roker-Jones, mom to Logan, 9 months. "I make purées to save money and use the premade ones for convenience." "While it might save you money, homemade baby food isn't any healthier than store-bought purées."
2. Introduce vegetables before fruits or baby might refuse them. We're all born with an innate preference for sweet foods — beginning with breast milk — but "it's a myth that if you start with fruits, they're not going to like vegetables," says pediatrician Jillian Parekh M.D., assistant clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. In some cases, offering a fruit and a sweet vegetable like carrots or sweet potatoes before a vegetable like green beans might work best. Keyla Kirton of West Babylon, New York, thinks giving her son mashed bananas as a first food — as is custom in her native Panamanian culture — is a prime reason now 2-year-old Matthew "eats almost anything." With his older sister, "I ignored my family's traditions and gave her veggies first and waited until she was almost 8 months," Kirton says. "Now, at 7, she's a very picky eater." Branch out beyond carrots and peas. Your child is most open to trying new tastes between 6 months and a year, so bombard her with flavors then. Research suggests it could take 15 times before baby will accept a new food, so the first few bites may be a bust. If you know she already likes something, mix it in.
3. Wait until baby's at least a year old before giving him eggs, fish or peanut butter. Your mother's advice is probably outdated (she put you to bed on your belly in a drop-side crib with fluffy blankets for goodness sake!), but even parents your age might have outdated info. When I started feeding Jules solids, it was recommended to wait beyond baby's first birthday to introduce three highly allergenic foods: eggs, fish and peanut butter. In 2010, the AAP amended its stance. "Unless you have a high family history [of food allergy], you don't need to wait anymore," says Jatinder Bhatia M.D., chair of the committee on nutrition for the AAP. "You can offer eggs and shrimp." Nuts are OK too. Nithya Das of Brooklyn, New York, a first generation Indian-American, introduced her daughter, now 2, to cashews, almonds and peanuts (puréed!) at about 10 months. "It was a priority to introduce Indian flavors at an early age, including nuts," says Das, who runs the website halfpintgourmet.com, a healthy recipe resource for parents. "We don't have any nut allergies in our family, so I was comfortable giving her these. I'm always vigilant about keeping an eye out for an allergic reaction." Offering new foods one at a time, three days apart, will help you easily track an allergic reaction or sensitivity back to the offending food.
4. The first solid food you introduce should be rice cereal. Rice cereal is a commonly recommended food because it's unlikely to cause an allergic reaction, and it's fortified with iron, which is especially important for babies who are exclusively breastfed and don't get extra iron from formula, says Jennifer Shu M.D., spokeswoman for the AAP. But, really, you can start with whatever you'd like. "I skipped right past the cereal to mashed banana and puréed sweet potatoes, which worked well for us," says Cristen Pantano, mother of two in Pittstown, New Jersey. Or consider starting with puréed meat: Red meat is naturally rich in iron, which is why pediatricians are increasingly recommending it as a first food, says Dr. Shu. Early eating experiences are about helping your child figure out how to use her tongue, not to mention utensils, so whatever you choose for those first spoonfuls, take a low-key approach to offering it. "This is all a new adventure for your baby, so enjoy the experience," says Tina Ruggiero R.D., co-author of The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet.
5. Between ages 1 and 2, all toddlers need whole milk. Yes, babies' developing brains need fat, but clinical trials have repeatedly shown that "reduced-fat milk [2 percent] will support their development just as well [as whole milk]," says Bhatia. Taking these studies — and the skyrocketing rate of childhood obesity — into consideration, the AAP issued a policy paper in 2008 stating "for children between 12 months and 2 years of age for whom overweight or obesity is a concern or who have a family history of obesity the use of reduced-fat milk would be appropriate." There's a movement among some pediatricians (including Bhatia and others within the AAP) to broaden this reduced-fat milk recommendation to be the general rule for toddlers 12 to 24 months. "You're trying to create lifelong habits," says Bhatia. "And [if you started on whole milk] it can be difficult to suddenly start drinking reduced-fat milk." (If you've ever tried to switch from cream to skim milk in your coffee, you get it.) Sumara Case, a mom of two in Buffalo, New York, is on board with the above recommendations. "I wasn't worried about my daughter getting enough fat since she was eating healthy fats from other foods," says Case. Not sure whether 2-percent or whole milk is best for your toddler? Talk to your pediatrician.
6. Baby sets the schedule. During your baby's first few months, it's true that you should feed him when he wants to eat, which helps baby learn to recognize hunger and fullness. But as your child nears his first birthday, transition to a more structured meal and snack schedule, says Johnson. "We have a generation of kids who are still feeding on demand, which is leading to grazing during the day and then picky eating at the table because they never get truly hungry before mealtime." Offer a meal or snack every two to three hours — have him sit down at the table to eat — and avoid snacks and sippy cups (except for water) in between. "That way your little one can build up a bit of an appetite, which makes the food you're serving for dinner more appealing," says Johnson. My husband, Jon Olin, says not filling a cup of milk for our 19-month-old son every time he asked for it took a little getting used to. "You want to make sure he's getting everything he needs and, because you've been trained to respond so much during the first year, you assume that they're telling you what they need, when they need it," says Olin. "But then he wasn't eating very well at meals. We cut out the on-demand milk, offered water instead, and his appetite at the table improved."


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Pack of cardstock die cut pieces made of high-quality 250gsm acid and lignin free European paper. The set contains 56 pieces. The size of the elements is from 2 to 12 cm. The set complements the scrapbooking paper kit collection "Cutie Sparrow Boy".
Produced by TM " Fabrika Decoru", Ukraine


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Fenway Park
"It has a big green wall"
"Let's go eat some Dunkin' Donuts, and den we'll watch da Sawx."
Fenway Park is the oldest, smallest, least comfortable, and most expensive park in Major League Baseball. Yet fans and tourists from around the world flock en masse to this cesspit of sweat and urine because it's all historical or something. Due to the stadium's small size there is no such thing as a bad seat because no matter what you're sitting behind one of the stadium's copious columns but can always see the New York Yankees pumping steroids and underage girls in their dugout. Unfortunately for the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees beat them in every encounter. This is because the Red Sox seem to choke all of the time, during games and even on food. In 2006, Kevin Youkilis accidently choked on a california roll and was hospitalized for the whole season while the Yankees won the American League East.
The Big Shitgo Sign[edit]
The best thing about the park is that you can see a big Shitgo sign. This sign is very famous for obvious reasons. Sam Horn is the only man to successfully hit the Shitgo sign with a towering home run, causing thousands of dangerous shards of mercury-coated neon tubing to fall to the street below and releasing deadly clouds of highly toxic neon gas. Several Yankees fans standing below were immediately killed. Sam Horn immediately had his number retired for this reason.
The Green Monster[edit]
The second greatest thing about Fenway Park is the famous Green Monster (not to be confused with the Incredible Hulk). Starting out as just a puny insignificant plywood partition in 1903, it was accidently doused with a vial of growth serum and has since expanded to gargantuan proportions and now threatens to engulf all of Greater Boston and rob many potential home runs from the visiting teams.
As of 2005, the Green Monster is reportedly having a secret love affair with the big Citgo sign. The Green Monster was then featured on the television program Cheaters, where he had to explain to his true love Coke Bottle Statue, why he was caught with the Citgo sign.


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Wendy of Wendymoon Designs made this awesome TARDIS quilt for her friend who is a huge Dr. Who fan.
Her favorite "character" is the .TARDIS. I had the idea to piece together a TARDIS quilt, and this was the result
I especially love the touch of the fabric selvage in place of the "Police box." [via Geek Crafts]
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Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine — in all of its six-volume, 2,438-page splendor — explicitly aims to "reinvent cooking." Maybe it will; and it will almost surely reinvent a certain kind of high-end book retailing. It sells for a cool $625, and its initial 6,000-copy print run has already sold out.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Myhrvold and his vast project have not been warmly received by the sustainable food movement. Alice Waters, the influential Berkeley restaurateur, dismissed the high-tech cooking championed by Myhrvold as a "kind of scientific experiment," adding that "it's not a kind of way of eating that we need to really live on this planet together." In other quarters of the movement, the response has been silence. One prominent sustainable-food person told me privately she had "zero interest" in what Myhrvold is up to, a response echoed by several others.
Yet after speaking to Myhrvold on the phone and spending some time poking through Modernist Cuisine (no, I didn't score a review copy; I was allowed access to an online facsimile of it for a limited amount of time), I'm convinced that Myhrvold does have something to offer the movement: cooking tips, yes, but mainly a theory of food that will be valuable in rescuing food from the forces of industrialization.
That might seem at first glance like an ironic, and foolish, statement. Myhrvold is a tech gazillionaire — he served as Microsoft's chief technology officer during the 1990s, the decade that saw the operating-software behemoth conquer the universe (including its Wall Street wing). Modernist Cuisine is a kind of glorious rich guy's vanity project: years in the making, it sprouted in the 88,000-square-foot warehouse of Intellectual Ventures, Myhrvold's Seattle-based company. Evidently, no expense was spared to create this 40-pound monster of a work — Myhrvold assembled a team of dozens of chefs, photographers, and assistants. Lord knows how much cash went into equipping the vast kitchen/laboratory with the various machines needed to put his culinary vision into action. All told, Myhrvold has said, the project cost him something approaching $10 million. This may be the most elaborate book project since King James assembled his Bible.
But for all the technology fetishism on display, Modernist Cuisine is really an art project, as Myhrvold made clear when we spoke. As a writer, Myhrvold chooses his words carefully, and his title's reference to modernist, and not modern, cuisine is not an accident. He's referring specifically to the modernist strain in Western art that first flowered among painters in France in the middle of the 19th century. From the beginning, modernist art meant a rejection (or at least a thorough questioning) of the certainties of tradition — not only religious pieties, but also those of the Enlightenment, which was hinged on the idea that all phenomena could be explained rationally.
Modernism unleashed a torrent of experimentation: first in painting, then visual arts generally, then in poetry, architecture, theater, music, and novel writing. For all those art forms, radical modernist movements arrived by the 1930s. But according to Myhrvold, food never got its modernist transformation until the mid-1990s, with the rise of the wildly inventive chefs like Spain's Ferran Adrià and the U.K.'s Heston Blumenthal, followed by their U.S. acolytes Grant Achatz and Wylie Dufresne.
"Adrià and Blumenthal began doing something radically different," Myhrvold told me. "Under the banner of what became known as 'molecular gastronomy,' they threw aside tradition or turned it upside down, and began experimenting with new flavors, techniques, combinations. No one had really done that before in the food world."
I asked him what had taken so long: Why did modernist cuisine arrive so much later than other forms of modernism? Why did cuisine have to wait until the 1980s to get its James Joyce? And what about the famed turn-of-the-century French chef Auguste Escoffier — why didn't he qualify?
The dominance of Escoffier is precisely why modernism took so long to take hold in cuisine, Myhrvold replied. "Escoffier was incredibly influential, but he didn't establish an art form, he created a system," he said. "In many ways, he was the Henry Ford of the kitchen … he was about managing production and maintaining uniform standards, not individual creativity."
Myhrvold went on to talk about how Escoffier and his "brigade" system became the orthodoxy against which his radical modernist chefs rebelled — in a much more fundamental way than did the practitioners of an earlier culinary movement, nouvelle cuisine, in the 1970s. "The nouvelle cuisine people did a lot of interesting and important things, but they were really kind of refining Escoffier, not throwing him over … and they explicitly stated that they weren't modernists."
And here is where we get to the importance of Modernist Cuisine for the food movement: It recognizes and indeed celebrates food as something much more than mere sustenance, mere slop on a plate meant to keep us going another day. It sees food as an art, as "something that can engage our minds, our senses, and emotions just as profoundly as carefully chosen words and brush strokes," as Myhrvold writes in a historical essay in the first volume of Modernist Cuisine. Myhrvold's commitment to food as a sensory and cultural, not merely functional, artifact permeates the book's volumes, even in their geekiest sections. The photography wouldn't be out of place at the Museum of Modern Art.
Compare Myhrvold's aesthete's vision of food with the view of, say, the transnational GMO seed giant Monsanto. In a much-heralded and self-congratulatory 2008 document, Monsanto promised to "double yield in its three core crops of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030" in order to help "feed the world" amid population growth. This is a vision of food reduced to pure commodity, with progress measured by gross output of a few preselected crops.
And that's been the official government/industry/philanthropic view of agriculture at least since the dawn of industrial ag in the early 20th century. I've been reading a terrific book called The Hungry World: America's Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia, by the University of Indiana historian Nick Cullather. The book is an intellectual history of the Green Revolution, the effort funded and engineered by U.S. foundations and aid institutions to boost food production in Asia in the '60s and '70s. Cullather writes about the invention of the calorie as a unit of food value in the late 19th century, and how it allowed foodstuffs to be reduced to the amount of energy they contained. The precise measurement of calories, Cullather writes, "translated the vernacular customs of food into the numerical language of empire." It gave rise to the conviction that food was "fundamentally uniform and comparable between nations and time periods … that wheat was uniquely important as an international conveyor of food bulk value." In short, he argues, calorie-fixated industrialists and bureaucrats began to view food as a commodity, "without reference to taste, ethnic conviction, or social context."
Of course, the 20th century brought the rise of chemical agriculture designed to maximize the production of calories — and with it, the withering away of food traditions, ethnic and otherwise, across the United States. Thus at the same time Escoffier was rationalizing and regimenting the restaurant kitchen, technocrats were doing the same for the farm field. That same vision of food as purely utilitarian, uniform commodity permeated the original Green Revolution of the '60s and '70s in South Asia, and it permeates the so-called "Second Green Revolution" now being financed by the foundation of Myhrvold's old Microsoft boss, Bill Gates.
The sustainable food movement has worked explicitly against that agenda; it has tried to re-enchant the eating experience, to restore food's role as a cultural experience that ties us to our communities and to the Earth. Myhrvold, a Microsoft man and in fact a confirmed techno-optimist (let's leave his promotion of geoengineering for discussion another day), may seem an odd ally for that effort. But with the publication of his brilliant, grandiose Modernist Cuisine, he established himself as just that.
Modernist Cuisine documents and pushes forward a high-art vision of food; but high art presumes the existence of other genres, too: food as popular art, food as craft. All of them place skilled human labor and ingenuity at the heart of the food project. They stand in sharp contrast to the productionist, mechanical vision of food's future promoted by the likes of Monsanto.
As for cooking tips, I asked Myhrvold if he could offer a recipe for Grist readers. His publicist piped in that the book's recipes were too involved to share in such a fashion, but Myhrvold offered up a simple one anyway. "Next time you're making an omelette or scrambling some eggs," he advised, "do this: leave out one white for every three eggs you use." I tried it, with eggs that Alice Waters herself would approve of, from free-scratching hens that feed on grubs and kitchen scraps along with a bit of corn. The result: sublime.


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I've seen some posts about whether you can stop spotlight constantly indexing your time machine backup drive. It seems you can't have it attached to your computer and not have it indexed.
I have been getting around the problem by demounting my backup drive and then remounting it when I want to back up.
I wonder if any anyone has a script that would mount, backup and unmount a backup drive every 6 hours or so.


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Joan Anderson
Photo: © E.R. Lilley
About the Author
Joan Anderson is the author of three nonfiction works for women: A Year by the Sea, An Unfinished Marriage (both New York Times bestsellers) and A Walk on the Beach. She is also a seasoned journalist and has written numerous children's novels. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Anderson lives with her husband on Cape Cod.


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Deconstructing Darwin—full steam ahead!
The world is starting to take notice in the "year of Darwin"
During 2009 atheist and humanist groups are celebrating Darwin's birthday and their belief that evolution explains life without God. To counter this CMI offices all over the world are working to equip Christians to answer sceptics attack on the Bible and to boost and share their faith.
The vision
CMI Canada's Dr Emil Silvestru (suggested a world class documentary re-tracing Darwin's voyage, for release in 2009, to counteract the inevitable evolutionary hype from sceptics. Soon after, CMI Canada had a vision for major CMI events and conferences that would assist Christians in countering Bible critics as well.
It seemed like a perfect opportunity. We knew it was coming and rather than watching the inevitable fallout from churches that such periodic anti-Christian attacks like the Da Vinci Code or The Lost Tomb of Jesus usually produce, we decided to contact larger churches that would be willing and capable of hosting such events to prepare Christians for the inevitable. Darwin's bicentennial and the 150th anniversary release of Origin of Species were sure to set off a firestorm of anti-God and pro-evolution celebrations and activities, so why not face it head on?
The wave
Sure enough, many pro-evolution documentaries for release in 2009 are planned, talk of establishing "Darwin Day" (as a holiday on par with Christmas) has begun, many news outlets have reported on the "There is probably no God" advertising campaigns in England, Canada and the US. Nature launched a special issue featuring Darwin, his science and his legacy. The Natural History Museum in London, UK, dedicated a website promoting a national program of events celebrating his scientific ideas. Museums, universities and science organizations are networking globally to promote Darwin through exhibitions, lectures and conferences.
Events are planned in dozens of countries including the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, China, South Korea, Portugal, Germany, Egypt and Hong Kong. Stanford University, California, will fly 90 "pilgrims" along the route of Darwin's Beagle voyage. Even art exhibitions and music festivals are featuring paintings, sculpture and orchestral works praising Darwin and evolution.
Even more sadly, a self-avowed atheist Michael Zimmerman (US) is canvassing and enlisting the support of churches around the world to endorse evolution and celebrate Darwin for an evolution weekend, and thousands of churches have or will participate!
Obviously, a faith-funded Christian ministry like CMI cannot hope to compete head-to-head with publicly-funded programs like many mentioned above, but God does use the faithful in promoting His word.
The results (so far!)
Already, approximately 1700 people have attended one of our Canadian 2–day Deconstructing Darwin (DD) conferences, and the majority and largest of conferences are still to come! All of this is in addition to hundreds of others reached through our "regular" and ongoing ministry events and tours! One of the conferences that was broadcast live online from TheStreamTV.com (which potentially reached thousands more all around the world) elicited comments like this;
"God bless CMI and the Stream TV for making available a Deconstructing Darwin conference online free for all to watch. After having recently completed watching all the seminars, I want to say Emil, Richard, Calvin, and Jeff had stellar presentations. I want to commend you for standing on the authority of the Word of God when answering questions, and starting from Scripture." —David K.
After a recent conference in Kingston, Ontario a young man came forward and said that he had been attending church since he was 4 years old, and " … after the last 2 days I have never been so confident and encouraged in my faith as a Christian!"
This is only one of many such comments our speakers have heard; the "buzz" at these meetings has been tremendous. The secular press and radio stations have interviewed our speakers to get in on the excitement generated by these conferences (see pictures). Many pastors and church leaders have attended and given positive feedback. Connections to churches that have never been exposed to the creation message before have been established.
The future
The requests for Deconstructing Darwin conferences for 2009 have already exceeded our capacity to fulfil! Most of our international offices are reporting a similar phenomenon. So, in Canada, we have started booking into 2010 and will continue throughout next year for those communities that are willing to host an event. We anticipate continued interest as we add screenings of our new Darwin Film documentary into the conference schedules. With the world experiencing one of the most intense periods of evolutionary indoctrination, Christians will undoubtedly be hungry for answers for years to come.
Please continue to pray that these events will embolden Christians and ultimately that God will use the information to draw people into His kingdom. Also, if there is a conference in your area bring others with you; you may be amazed at what God will do! (One pastor reported a dramatic increase in his young adult program after many attended a Deconstructing Darwin event hosted at their church.)


text:
Frédéric Bastiat
I wish some one would offer a prize for a good, simple, and intelligent definition of the word "Government."
What an immense service it would confer on society !
The Government! what is it? where is it? what does it do? what ought it to do? All we know is, that it is a mysterious personage; and, assuredly, it is the most solicited, the most tormented, the most overwhelmed, the most admired, the most accused, the most invoked, and the most provoked of any personage in the world.
I have not the pleasure of knowing my reader but I would stake ten to one that for six months he has been making Utopias, and if so, that he is looking to Government for the realization of them.
And should the reader happen to be a lady: I have no doubt that she is sincerely desirous of seeing all the evils of suffering humanity remedied, and that she thinks this might easily be done, if Government would only undertake it.
But, alas! that poor unfortunate personage, like Figaro, knows not to whom to listen, nor where to turn. The hundred thousand mouths of the press and of the platform cry out all at once —
"Organize labor and workmen."
"Repress insolence and the tyranny of capital."
"Make experiments upon manure and eggs."
"Cover the country with railways."
"Irrigate the plains."
"Plant the hills."
"Make model farms."
"Found social workshops."
"Nurture children."
"Instruct the youth."
"Assist the aged."
"Send the inhabitants of towns into the country."
"Equalize the profits of all trades."
"Lend money without interest to all who wish to borrow."
"Emancipate oppressed people everywhere."
"Rear and perfect the saddle-horse."
"Encourage the arts, and provide us musicians, painters, and architects."
"Restrict commerce, and at the same time create a merchant navy."
"Discover truth, and put a grain of reason into our heads.
The mission of Government is to enlighten, to develop, to extend, to fortify,
to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people."
"Do have a little patience, gentlemen" says Government, in a beseeching tone. "I will do what I can to satisfy you, but for this I must have resources. I have been preparing plans for five or six taxes, which are quite new, and not at all oppressive. You will see how willingly people will pay them."
Then comes a great exclamation: - "No! indeed! where is the merit of doing a thing with resources? Why, it does not deserve the name of a Government!"
"So far from loading us with fresh taxes, we would
have you withdraw the old ones. You ought to
"The tobacco tax."
"The tax on liquors."
"The tax on letters."
"Custom-house duties."
In the midst of this tumult, and now that the country has again and again changed the administration, for not having satisfied all its demands, I wanted to show that they were contradictory. But, what could I have been thinking about? Could I not keep this unfortunate observation to myself!
I have lost my character forever! I am looked upon as a man without heart and without feeling - a dry philosopher, an individualist, a plebeian - in a word, an economist of the practical school. But, pardon me, sublime writers, who stop at nothing, not even at contradictions. I am wrong, without a doubt, and I would willingly retract. I should be glad enough, you may be sure, if you had really discovered a beneficent and inexhaustible being, calling itself the Government, which has bread for all mouths, work for all hands, capital for all enterprises, credit for all projects, oil for all wounds, balm for all sufferings, advice for all perplexities, solutions for all doubts, truths for all intellects, diversions for all who want them, milk for infancy, and wine for old age - which can provide for all our wants, satisfy all our curiosity, correct all our errors, repair all our faults, and exempt us henceforth from the necessity for foresight, prudence, judgment, sagacity, experience, order, economy, temperance, and activity.
What reason could I have for not desiring to see such a discovery made? Indeed, the more I reflect upon it, the more do I see that nothing could be more convenient than that we should all of us have within our reach an inexhaustible source of wealth and enlightenment - a universal physician, an unlimited treasure, and an infallible counselor, such as you describe Government to be. Therefore it is that I want to have it pointed out and defined, and that a prize should be offered to the first discoverer of the phoenix. For no one would think of asserting that this precious discovery has yet been made, since up to this time everything presenting itself under the name of the Government has at some time been overturned by the people, precisely because it does not fulfill the rather contradictory conditions of the programme.
I will venture to say that I fear we are, in this respect, the dupes of one of the strangest illusions which have ever taken possession of the human mind.
Man recoils from trouble - from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be - whether that of wars, imposition, violence, restrictions, frauds, &c. - monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought which has given them birth. Oppression should be detested and resisted - it can hardly be called absurd.
Slavery is disappearing, thank heaven! and, on the other hand, our disposition to defend our property prevents direct and open plunder from being easy.
One thing, however, remains - it is the original inclination which exists in all men to divide the lot of life into two parts, throwing the trouble upon others, and keeping the satisfaction for themselves. It remains to be shown under what new form this sad tendency is manifesting itself.
The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own powers upon his victim. No, our conscience has become too sensitive for that. The tyrant and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate person between them, which is the Government — that is, the Law itself. What can be better calculated to silence our scruples, and, which is perhaps better appreciated, to overcome all resistance? We all therefore, put in our claim, under some pretext or other, and apply to Government. We say to it, "I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labor and my enjoyments. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired equilibrium, to take a part of the possessions of others. But this would be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not find me a good place? or check the industry of my competitors? or, perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital which, you may take from its possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense? or grant me some prizes? or secure me a competence when I have attained my fiftieth year? By this mean I shall gain my end with an easy conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without its risk or its disgrace!"
As it is certain, on the one hand, that we are all making some similar request to the Government; and as, on the other, it is proved that Government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labor of the others, until I can obtain another definition of the word Government I feel authorized to give it my own. Who knows but it may obtain the prize? Here it is:
"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
For now, as formerly, every one is, more or less, for profiting by the labors of others. No one would dare to profess such a sentiment; he even hides it from himself; and then what is done? A medium is thought of; Government is applied to, and every class in its turn comes to it, and says, "You, who can take justifiably and honestly, take from the public, and we will partake." Alas! Government is only too much disposed to follow this diabolical advice, for it is composed of ministers and officials - of men, in short, who, like all other men, desire in their hearts, and always seize every opportunity with eagerness, to increase their wealth and influence. Government is not slow to perceive the advantages it may derive from the part which is entrusted to it by the public. It is glad to be the judge and the master of the destinies of all; it will take much, for then a large share will remain for itself; it will multiply the number of its agents; it will enlarge the circle of its privileges; it will end by appropriating a ruinous proportion.
But the most remarkable part of it is the astonishing blindness of the public through it all. When successful soldiers used to reduce the vanquished to slavery, they were barbarous, but they were not absurd. Their object, like ours, was to live at other people's expense, and they did not fail to do so. What are we to think of a people who never seem to suspect that reciprocal plunder is no less plunder because it is reciprocal; that it is no less criminal because it is executed legally and with order; that it adds nothing to the public good; that it diminishes it, just in proportion to the cost of the expensive medium which we call the Government?
And it is this great chimera which the French nation, for example, placed in 1848, for the edification of the people, as a frontispiece to its Constitution. The following is the beginning of the preamble to this Constitution: —
"France has constituted itself a republic for the purpose of raising all the citizens to an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being."
Thus it is France, or an abstraction, which is to raise the French to morality, well-being, &c. Is it not by yielding to this strange delusion that we are led to expect everything from an energy not our own? Is it not giving out that there is, independently of the French, a virtuous, enlightened, and rich being, who can and will bestow upon them its benefits? Is not this supposing, and certainly very gratuitously, that there are between France and the French - between the simple, abridged, and abstract denomination of all the individualities, and these individualities themselves - relations as of father to son, tutor to his pupil, professor to his scholar? I know it is often said, metaphorically, "the country is a tender mother." But to show the inanity of such a constitutional proposition, it is only needed to show that it may be reversed, not only without inconvenience, but even with advantage. Would it be less exact to say:
"The French have constituted themselves a Republic to raise France to an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment, and well being."
Now, where is the value of an axiom where the subject and the attribute could change places without inconvenience? Everybody understands what is meant by this: "The mother will feed the child." But it would be ridiculous to say, "The child will feed the mother."
The Americans formed another idea of the relations of the citizens with the Government when they placed these simple words at the head of their constitution: —
"We, the people of the United States, for the purpose of forming a more perfect union, of establishing justice, of securing interior tranquillity, of providing for our common defense, of increasing the general well-being, and of securing the benefits of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, decree, &c."
Here there is no chimerical creation, no abstraction, from which the citizens may demand everything. They expect nothing except from themselves and their own energy.
If I may be permitted to criticise the first words of the French Constitution of 1848, I would remark, that what I complain of is something more than a mere metaphysical subtlety, as might seem at first sight.
I contend that this personification of Government has been, in past times, and will be hereafter, a fertile source of calamities and revolutions.
There is the public on one side, Government on the other, considered as two distinct beings; the latter bound to bestow upon the former, and the former having the right to claim from the latter, all imaginable human benefits. What will be the consequence?
In fact, Government is not maimed, and cannot be so. It has two hands - one to receive and the other to give; in other words, it has a rough hand and a smooth one. The activity of the second necessarily subordinate to the activity of the first. Strictly, Government may take and not restore. This is evident, and may be explained by the porous and absorbing nature of its hands, which always retain a part, and sometimes the whole, of what they touch. But the thing that never was seen, and never will be seen or conceived, is, that Government can restore to the public more than it has taken from it. It is therefore ridiculous for us to appear before it in the humble attitude of beggars. It is radically impossible for it to confer a particular benefit upon any one of the individualities which constitute the community, without inflicting a greater injury upon the community as a whole.
Our requisitions, therefore, place it in a dilemma. If it refuses to grant the requests made to it, it is accused of weakness, ill-will, and incapacity. If it endeavors to grant them, it is obliged to load the people with fresh taxes - to do more harm than good, and to bring upon itself from another quarter the general displeasure.
Thus, the public has two hopes, and Government makes two promises - many benefits and no taxes. Hopes and promises, which, being contradictory, can never be realized.
Now, is not this the cause of all our revolutions? For, between the Government, which lavishes promises which it is impossible to perform, and the public, which has conceived hopes which can never be realized, two classes of men interpose - the ambitious and the Utopians. It is circumstances which give these their cue. It is enough if these vassals of popularity cry out to the people: "The authorities are deceiving you; if we were in their place, we would load you with benefits and exempt you from taxes."
And the people believe, and the people hope, and the people make a revolution!
No sooner are their friends at the head of affairs, than they are called upon to redeem their pledge. "Give us work, bread, assistance, credit, instruction, more money," say the people; "and withal deliver us, as you promised, from the demands of the tax-gatherers."
The new Government is no less embarrassed than the former one, for it soon finds that it is much more easy to promise than to perform. It tries to gain time, for this is necessary for maturing its vast projects. At first, it makes a few timid attempts. On one hand it institutes a little elementary instruction; on the other, it makes a little reduction in some taxes. But the contradiction is forever starting up before it; if it would be philanthropic, it must attend to its exchequer; if it neglects its exchequer, it must abstain from being philanthropic.
These two promises are for ever clashing with each other; it cannot be otherwise. To live upon credit, which is the same as exhausting the future, is certainly a present means of reconciling them: an attempt is made to do a little good now, at the expense of a great deal of harm in future. But such proceedings call forth the spectre of bankruptcy, which puts an end to credit. What is to be done then? Why, then, the new Government takes a bold step; it unites all its forces in order to maintain itself; it smothers opinion, has recourse to arbitrary measures, ridicules its former maxims, declares that it is impossible to conduct the administration except at the risk of being unpopular; in short, it proclaims itself governmental. And it is here that other candidates for popularity are waiting for it. They exhibit the same illusion, pass by the same way, obtain the same success, and are soon swallowed up in the same gulf.
We had arrived at this point, in France, in February, 1849. At this time the illusion which is the subject of this article had made more way than at any former period in the ideas of the French people, in connection with Socialist doctrines. They expected, more firmly than ever, that Government, under a republican form, would open in grand style the source of benefits and close that of taxation. "We have often been deceived," said the people; "but we will see to it ourselves this time, and take care not to be deceived again?"
What could the Provisional Government do? Alas! just that which always is done in similar circumstances - make promises, and gain time.
It did so, of course; and to give its promises more weight, it announced them publicly thus: "Increase of prosperity, diminution of labor, assistance, credit, gratuitous instruction, agricultural colonies, cultivation of waste land, and, at the same time, reduction of the tax on salt, liquor, letters, meat; all this shall be granted when the National Assembly meets."
The National Assembly meets, and, as it is impossible to realize two contradictory things, its task, its sad task, is to withdraw, as gently as possible, one after the other, all the decrees of the Provisional Government. However, in order somewhat to mitigate the cruelty of the deception, it is found necessary to negotiate a little. Certain engagements are fulfilled, others are, in a measure, begun, and therefore the new administration is compelled to contrive some new taxes.
Now, I transport myself, in thought, to a period a few months hence, and ask myself, with sorrowful forebodings, what will come to pass when agents of the new Government go into the country to collect new taxes upon legacies, revenues, and the profits of agricultural traffic? It is to be hoped that my presentiments may not be verified, but I foresee a difficult part for the candidates for popularity to play.
Read the last manifesto of one of the political parties - which they issued on the occasion of the election of the President. It is rather long, but at length it concludes with these words: "Government ought to give a great deal to the people, and take little from them." It is always the same tactics, or, rather, the same mistake.
"Government is bound to give gratuitous instruction and education to all the citizens."
It is bound to give "A general and appropriate professional education, as much as possible adapted to the wants, the callings, and the capacities of each citizen."
It is bound "To teach every citizen his duty to God, to man, and to himself; to develop his sentiments, his tendencies, and his faculties; to teach him, in short, the scientific part of his labor; to make him understand his own interests, and to give him a knowledge of his rights."
It is bound "To place within the reach of all literature and the arts, the patrimony of thought, the treasures of the mind, and all those intellectual enjoyments which elevate and strengthen the soul." It is bound "To give compensation for every accident, from fire, inundation &c., experienced by a citizen." (The etcetera means more than it says.)
It is bound "To attend to the relations of capital with labor, and to become the regulator of credit."
It is bound "To afford important encouragement and efficient protection to agriculture."
It is bound "To purchase railroads, canals, and mines; and, doubtless, to transact affairs with that industrial capacity which characterizes it."
It is bound "To encourage useful experiments, to promote and assist them by every means likely to make them successful. As a regulator of credit, it will exercise such extensive influence over industrial and agricultural associations as shall insure them success."
Government is bound to do all this, in addition to the services to which it is already pledged; and further, it is always to maintain a menacing attitude toward foreigners; for, according to those who sign the programme, "Bound together by this holy union, and by the precedents of the French Republic, we carry our wishes and hopes beyond the boundaries which despotism has placed between nations. The rights which we desire for ourselves, we desire for all those who are oppressed by the yoke of tyranny; we desire that our glorious arms should still, if necessary, be the army of liberty."
You see that the gentle hand of Government - that good hand which gives and distributes, will be very busy under the government of the reformers. You think, perhaps, that it will be the same with the rough hand - that hand which dives into our pockets. Do not deceive yourselves. The aspirants after popularity would not know their trade, if they had not the art, when they show the gentle hand, to conceal the rough one. Their reign will assuredly be the jubilee of the taxpayers.
"It is superfluities, not necessaries," they say, "which ought to be taxed."
Truly, it will be a good time when the exchequer, for the sake of loading us with benefits, will content itself with curtailing our superfluities!
This is not all. The reformers intend that "taxation shall lose its oppressive character, and be only an act of fraternity." Good heavens! I know it is the fashion to thrust fraternity in everywhere, but I did not imagine it would ever be put into the hands of the tax-gatherer.
To come to the details:-Those who sign the programme say, "We desire the immediate abolition of those taxes which affect the absolute necessaries of life, as salt, liquors, &c., &c."
"The reform of the tax on landed property, customs, and patents."
"Gratuitous justice - that is, the simplification of its forms, and reduction of its expenses." (This, no doubt, has reference to stamps.)
Thus, the tax on landed property, customs, patents, stamps, salt, liquors, postage, all are included. These gentlemen have found out the secret of giving an excessive activity to the gentle hand of Government, while they entirely paralyze its rough hand.
Well, I ask the impartial reader, is it not childishness, and more than that, dangerous childishness? Is it not inevitable that we shall have revolution after revolution, if there is a determination never to stop till this contradiction is realized: — "To give nothing to government and to receive much from it?"
If the reformers were to come to power, would they not become the victims of the means which they employed to take possession of it?
Citizens! In all times, two political systems have been in existence, and each may be maintained by good reasons. According to one of them, Government ought to do much, but then it ought to take much. According to the other, this two-fold activity ought to be little felt. We have to choose between these two systems. But as regards the third system, which partakes of both the others, and which consists in exacting everything from Government, without giving it anything, it is chimerical, absurd, childish, contradictory, and dangerous. Those who parade it, for the sake of the pleasure of accusing all governments of weakness, and thus exposing them to your attacks, are only flattering and deceiving you, while they are deceiving themselves.
For ourselves, we consider that Government is and ought to be nothing whatever but the united power of the people, organized, not to be an instrument of oppression and mutual plunder among citizens; but, on the the contrary, to secure to every one his own, and to cause justice and security to reign.
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